Description

For auction is an original, signed Gerry Williams wide mouth vase. Its colors light blue-gray with two brown and black insignias on two of the four sides of the squared shape of the vase. The two sides of the vase containing the brown and black insignias are slightly indented. The interior of the vase is a light blue glaze. According to an article written by Jessica Shaykett entitled Remembering: Gerry Williams, published on September 2, 2014, shortly after Gerry Williams’ death on August 25, 2014, Gerry Williams, celebrated ceramist, American Craft Council Fellow and founder of Studio Potter magazine, was born in 1926 in India, where his parents were American missionaries. Mr. Williams was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's "idea of handicraft and low agricultural economies, living in mud-brick homes, growing things, making things for use by other people[.]" Gerry Williams studied at Cornell College in Iowa, and after providing alternative war service as a conscientious objector during World War II, he relocated to Concord, New Hampshire, in 1949 to study with the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. In 1953 after marrying his wife Julie, Williams built his own studio and home in rural Dunbarton, New Hampshire. Over the next two decades, he continued to focus on his wheel-thrown pottery techniques, developing his more expressive architectural forms in both porcelain and stoneware. He taught at institutions including Dartmouth College and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and participated in numerous American Craft Council seminars and conferences, all while exhibiting his own work throughout the United States and abroad. Mr. Williams founded Studio Potter magazine in 1972, and continued to edit it for more than 30 years. During this time, he and his wife traveled extensively to interview artists working in studio ceramics in both urban areas and the most remote regions of the world. His influence on the ceramic field through Studio Potter led to the ACC honoring Williams with a Gold Medal for publications in 1986. In addition to this and his induction into the College of Fellows in 1979, Williams has received many awards, including becoming an honorary member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and being designated New Hampshire's first Artist Laureate in 1998. In 1999, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen honored Mr. Williams with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Six years later, Mr. Williams received New Hampshire's Lotte Jacobi Living Treasure Award. His works are a part of numerous public and private collections including the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. The vase appears to be unused, with no marks, crazing, chips or any indications of wear or use. This vase was a gift from Gerry Williams to my late mother, since my parents were personal friends of Mr. Williams and his wife. This vase, along with several other creations gifted to mother by Mr. Williams has been displayed in a glass fronted curio cabinet at my mother’s abode until her death, after which the Gerry Williams pieces have remained in my home, also stored in a glass front curio cabinet. The vase is approximately five inches in height, two inches in diameter at its opening, three inches from edge to edge at the top and two and one quarter inches in diameter at its base. Please see the photographs for details, especially the various designs incised into the sides of the vase. These are photographs of the actual vase being sold; they are not stock photographs. The vase will be shipped in a sturdy box, wrapped in bubble paper. We shall be pleased to combine shipping on items of the same type and character, which can be shipped together. For example, we cannot combine china with books, which ship at a different rate. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN THIS IMPORTANT AND CLASSIC VASE.